


yours among them

by blooddrool



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Drabble, M/M, its about the intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23889445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blooddrool/pseuds/blooddrool
Summary: “The price of a kiss from Mr. Magnus,” Barnabas muses.  Jonah can feel his voice from where it is birthed in his chest, carried through his throat, wants to purr with how he’s perched atop it.
Relationships: Barnabas Bennett/Jonah Magnus
Comments: 12
Kudos: 77
Collections: Associated Articles Regarding One Jonah Magnus





	yours among them

“Would you kiss me?” Barnabas asks, and it is the mere fact of him asking that makes Jonah sit up and look at him.

Barnabas looks back at him, impassive. And he’s lovely like this, of course. In Jonah’s bed, in Jonah’s home, wrapped in Jonah’s sheets. Naked, because Jonah prefers him that way and because Jonah is occupying his shirt. The light from the fireplace cuts him through warm and orange, painted in shapes and shadows. He lays stretched out flat on the mattress, one arm bent behind his head, the other extended out, long and pale and inviting. His fingers twitch — as though he’d like to reach up and pull Jonah back down to him.

Jonah waits to see if he will, blinks slow in the golden dark. Barnabas does not move.

“Ask again,” Jonah says.

“Jonah Magnus, would you kiss me?” Barnabas complies.

It is the asking that tilts Jonah’s head, sharpens his vision like a whetstone sharpens a knife, like a hawk spots a field mouse. Barnabas looks on, not an ounce of shame in him. Not an ounce of fear. Something small and primal in Jonah’s gut wants to change that — wants with ever growing intensity to break that placid expression down into its most basic parts, bisected into neat little segments of terror and disgust. But the set of Barnabas’ mouth is loose and flat, and the larger, softer part of Jonah wants only to grant him his request.

And still — it is the asking that stays Jonah from falling back into his arms. He has kissed that mouth a hundred times, been kissed by it a thousand. Earned and snuck and stolen and bitten, and Barnabas has never asked for a single one of them.

“What will you give me in return?” Jonah asks, and Barnabas watches his mouth like any man watches a thing he thinks is his due. Foolish man, Jonah thinks. Foolish, arrogant man.

“Hm,” Barnabas says, and then, because he is lovely and very well knows it, he smiles, “What would you like?”

Jonah smiles back, sharper, wetter, and Barnabas’ gaze on his teeth feels physical, feels like meat in his mouth. Feels like the feeding hand placed willfully in the lion’s maw, held gently atop its barbed tongue. Jonah tastes flesh and considers the behavioral differences in licking and in chewing.

“You know very well what I’d like,” he says, and wonders briefly at the truth of it.

Barnabas laughs, a huff of breath that Jonah would like to chase down and swallow. “Ah, yes,” he says, “I do,” and Jonah suspects that maybe, just maybe, he does, “But I can’t give it to you.” He reaches out, then, his hand extending into the space between them and no further. “A compromise, then?”

Jonah hums from the depths of his chest, unimpressed. He ignores Barnabas’ hand, lifts the sheets and crawls over top of him instead, straddling his naked stomach. Leans down low, crosses his arms over Barnabas’ chest and rests his chin on them. He can feel Barnabas’ breath against his face when he exhales, can feel the expansion of his lungs in his chest immediately afterwards. Barnabas’ hand comes to rest on Jonah’s thigh, big and warm.

“A _compromise_ ,” Jonah agrees, if only because he does not know the rules to this game.

Barnabas strokes his fingers up the length of Jonah’s thigh, absentminded, thoughtless, like he’s been touching Jonah all his life and will forevermore. His smile remains, soft in the corners and so perfectly kissable.

“The price of a kiss from Mr. Magnus,” he muses. Jonah can feel his voice from where it is birthed in his chest, carried through his throat, wants to purr with how he’s perched atop it.

“A mighty gift,” he continues, “but– My life. How about that?”

Jonah blinks at him, allows himself the luxury of staring. Barnabas is smiling but he looks– He looks serious — in the way that Barnabas has ever looked serious, at least. Serene. At ease. Pledging his life to the thing in his lap that he once mistook for a housecat. Foolish, arrogant man. Jonah wonders if he will ever learn — and surprises himself with the strength of his opinion on the matter.

Jonah feels the smooth enamel of his molars with his tongue, presses down on a sharp bicuspid. “What if that isn’t enough?” he asks. 

“My soul, too, then. That ought be enough for you, yes?”

Jonah rises to his knees, props himself up on an elbow by Barnabas’ head. Jonah’s shadow covers him completely, cutting through the firelight and casting Barnabas in darkness. The wet of his eyes still gleams orange. He looks easily up at Jonah even as his hand goes still on his thigh, sedate, something uncomfortably close to peacefulness in the set of his jaw.

Jonah breathes silently in his space. Asks, “What am I to do with your life and your soul without your body to go with them?”

Barnabas squeezes his thigh. His nose wrinkles with mirth. Something inside of Jonah curls tighter into itself.

“That, you already have. I should think you’d know that by now,” he says — and Jonah does know it, yes.

Barnabas’ hand skims up to his shoulder, tips of his fingers grazing the nape of Jonah’s neck. “You greedy thing,” he says, quieter now, nearly breathless — and Jonah knows that, too. He is greedy. Greedy and selfish and cruel, and still Barnabas looks up at him, open and waiting. Jonah dips slightly, loose hair falling forward, and Barnabas swallows. Swallows and does not strain.

And Jonah wants with sudden, undeniable clarity to tell him what they both know to be true. Wants it like he has wanted so little in these past few years. Wants it like a pen wants paper, like a letter wants a seal. Like a story wants an ending.

Foolish, lovely Barnabas. Dearest Barnabas. It still isn’t enough. Life, soul, body: Jonah wants to tell him that it will never be enough.

Nothing is ever enough.

He leans down and kisses him, instead.


End file.
